


silk and bone

by fluffysfics



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, and the Doctor is bad at it, and then Slightly Sexual Intimacy, nonsexual intimacy, victorian clothing is pretty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22863547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: There’s a Zygon on the loose in Victorian England. The Doctor’s newest companion (and oldest friend) won’t let her get away with not dressing for the occasion this time.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 245





	silk and bone

“Doctor. I am telling you, you’ll start a riot if you go out in Victorian England dressed like that. Come on- for once in your life, listen to me.” The Master folded his arms, and the Doctor folded hers right back, looking displeased. He rolled his eyes. 

“No one _cares_ if I’m not dressed appropriately, Koschei. I blend in! Always been good at that.” She turned away from him, going to flip some switches on the TARDIS console. 

“I’m not one of your humans, I know those switches don’t do anything,” the Master pointed out. The Doctor stopped flipping switches. She didn’t turn back towards him, but the Master could picture exactly the exasperated expression that was on her face right now. “Come on, Doctor. You think there’s a Zygon in Queen Victoria’s court, you can’t just waltz in there dressed like that, you’ll spook it. You need to dress in, well...a dress.”

“I don’t need to, I...” The Doctor trailed off, sighed. Thinking about it, he assumed. “I hate it when you’re right.” She ducked her head, hair obscuring her expression. The Master stayed silent, hoping to prompt more from her. “...I haven’t worn a dress at all this regeneration. Don’t see the point. Hard enough to get people to take me seriously anyway, without three miles of extra fabric following me around.”

“People took Missy _very_ seriously,” he pointed out, stepping closer. “What you wear doesn’t matter, it’s about your confidence. And you have an abundance of that, don’t you?” 

“Hmm,” the Doctor said, walking away from the console. “Still don’t know how to put on a dress like that. Far too many parts.”

“I do. Missy. Still got those memories up here,” he said, tapping his temple. “Let me help you.”

The Doctor was silent for a long moment, still avoiding his gaze. She looked like she was grappling with something. Trust, the Master would bet. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, voice suddenly softer. More sincere. “Let me help. Show the world that the Doctor can pull off a dress just as well as...this.” He motioned to her current outfit. She snorted, shaking her hair out of her face at last. 

“Fine. Fine, you can help. But I get to pick the dress.” 

-

Ten minutes later, they were in one of the TARDIS’ wardrobe rooms, and the Doctor had already left a trail of chaos and destruction in her wake more thorough than anything the Master could ever hope to achieve. He just followed behind her, watching as she held up dress after dress and then tossed them aside. Nothing would satisfy her, it seemed. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to choose something for you?”

“No! I mean yes, I’m sure. I can do this myself. In fact- look!” The Doctor held up a dark green dress with swirling gold patterns embroidered across the bodice. “This one isn’t so bad.” 

“That one’s nice,” he agreed, stepping forward to take it from her. “You’d better show me to your bedroom, unless you want to strip off in the middle of your wardrobe.” 

-

Back in her bedroom, the Doctor seemed...nervous. This was nothing like her initial reluctance to wearing a dress; this was a tighter sort of nervous energy, like she’d just realised what she was letting herself in for. 

She was pacing the room, whilst the Master laid out the various parts of her dress on the bed. A chemise, stockings, two parts of the actual dress, and several layers of undergarments of varying fluffiness and structure. 

“This is really all for one person?” The Doctor stopped her pacing, raising an eyebrow at him. “There’s enough clothing here for at least three people. Seems very wasteful.”

“That’s rich people for you.” The Master shrugged. “Now, take your clothes off and put this on,” he said, offering her the chemise. 

The Doctor flushed cherry red. “Turn your back.”

“Doctor, I’ve seen you—“

“Turn your back,” she insisted, in a tone that brooked no argument. The Master shrugged, and turned his back. He heard the clinking of suspenders being undone, boots being kicked off, and then the rustling of fabric, followed by silence. He let the silence hang for a few beats, expecting her to ask him to turn back. She didn’t. 

He turned around, finding the Doctor staring at herself in the mirror. Turning thoughtfully from side to side, plucking at the material. 

“Isn’t this good enough? This is basically a dress already.”

“Doctor, in Victorian England, that’s the equivalent of attending a party in your underwear.” The Master stepped closer, resting his hands lightly on her shoulders and turning her around. “Trust me on this. I know what I’m doing.”

The Doctor closed her eyes for a moment, and sighed. “I trust you. For some reason. Let’s just- get on with it.”

Satisfied, the Master pulled away, fetching a corset off of the bed. “If you’ve never done this before, I’d recommend bracing yourself on something. Turn away from me, hands up against the wall.” 

“Giving me orders now, are you?” The Doctor nevertheless did as he asked, and the Master bit back a comment about what it would look like if someone walked in now. He could just _see_ the Doctor’s reaction to that, and it wasn’t going to be good. 

He stepped close, wrapping the corset around her, and she stilled completely. The Master saw her head bend forward slightly, hair falling in her face again. He said nothing, just started to quietly lace up the garment. 

Every so often, his fingers would graze against her back, and he could feel the Doctor shiver, or tense for a moment. Did she know what a work of art she was? How much the Master longed to pull these laces too tight, hear her gasp for breath? How desperate he was to slide his hands over every inch of skin exposed by this clothing, just to see what she would do? 

Resting one hand on the small of the Doctor’s back, he pulled on the laces one more time before tying them off neatly. “All done,” he murmured, his voice coming out a little rougher round the edges than expected. 

“That’s...not as bad as I thought,” the Doctor said, turning around. The Master noted with a sudden rush of heat that there was a light blush dusting her cheeks. “Um- what’s next?”

“Stockings. Much less traumatic than a corset, I should hope.” He picked them up. 

“I can do those myself.”

“Not in a corset you can’t.” The Master waited for the Doctor to test it out, watching her try to bend to floor level and fail miserably. 

“Fine,” she said, pouting. 

“Thank you. I’ll be gentle with you, as ever.” The Doctor snorted at that, and the Master ignored her, settling himself down on his knees in front of her. That shut her up. 

Wordlessly, the Master lifted one of her legs, slipping the stocking over her foot and rolling it up to her thigh. He couldn’t avoid touching her, didn’t _want_ to avoid it. Her skin was so soft beneath his fingertips, so warm. Delicate in a way that made him long to ruin it with teeth and tongue and fingernails while she begged for more. 

He glanced up at her face. Big mistake. She was watching him like she was hypnotised, those big dark eyes locked onto his. Gently, he set her foot down, and for a moment he was just...kneeling in front of her, staring into her eyes. 

Then he remembered himself, dragging his gaze away from the Doctor’s and lifting her other leg. Rolling the stocking up it in just the same way, letting his thumb graze over her inner thigh and almost fumbling his task when he heard her draw in a sharp breath. 

“That’s- that’s done,” the Master said, clearing his throat and getting back to his feet. The Doctor looked almost disappointed, and the sight was almost enough to have him sinking right back down to his knees for her. Stars above, the things she did to him ought be illegal. 

”So- what’s next?” The Master saw her tongue dart out to lick her lips, just momentarily. Yeah, he knew that feeling all too well. 

”The rest of your undergarments. Petticoats, mostly. You can put those on yourself.” The Master moved to sit on the edge of the bed, passing each item up to her and instructing her in just how to tie it up, make sure it sat perfectly in place. The Doctor was a little ungainly in her movements, a little awkward. Watching it was nothing like the electricity that had built up between them as he put her stockings on, but the Master couldn’t stop looking nonetheless. She was just mesmerising, plain and simple. 

“Perfect,” he praised when she was done. She looked up at him, a hint of a genuine smile flickering across her lips. 

“Do I get to put the actual dress on now? There _can’t_ be more undergarments, I already weigh a ton.” The Doctor flapped her arms, which were ironically one of the few parts of her _not_ currently covered by heavy clothing. 

“Yes, you get to put the dress on now.” The Master picked up the skirt first, helping her into it, hands brushing against her lower back as he settled it properly into place. “Lovely,” he murmured, unsure if he was talking about the skirt or about her. Either way, the Master saw goosebumps raise on her arms, and he couldn’t resist the temptation to skim his fingers lightly down them. The Doctor didn’t object, just stood up a little straighter, and it took all of the Master’s self control not to tear these damned clothes straight back off of her again. 

He took a deep breath, fetching the bodice of the dress. Guiding the Doctor into it, and then slipping behind her to lace it up again. A little more loosely than the corset, but tight enough to cling to her figure just right. 

His work done, the Master stepped back in front of her to admire her. “You look...stunning,” he said, the right word taking a moment to come to him. 

The Doctor’s expression twisted into something unknowable, then into a smile, then back to careful neutrality. She turned to look at herself in the mirror. “It’s not as bad as I expected,” she admitted, one finger tracing the swirling gold patterns on her bodice. 

“Just one last thing.” The Master picked a necklace up off of the bed, one decorated with intricate spirals of gold that matched the patterns on her dress near-perfectly. He slipped behind her while she was still in front of the mirror, draping the necklace over her collarbones and gently brushing her hair aside to fasten it at the back. The Doctor’s eyes fluttered shut, like she’d forgotten where she was standing, forgotten that he could see the look on her face. 

The necklace was fastened, but he couldn’t quite bear to let his hands leave her skin. The Master let them slide back around to the front, tracing over the sharp angles of her neck, fingers grazing along her collarbone. The Doctor said nothing, and neither did he. 

He lowered his head, pressing his lips against the juncture of her neck and shoulders, and that was when her eyes snapped open. 

“Zygons,” she said, and the Master blinked. 

“What?”

“Zygons in Queen Victoria’s court. We- we need to go deal with that, come on. You’re distracting me.”

The Master’s hands dropped back to his side, indignant. “You didn’t tell me to _stop_ , I—“ 

The Doctor cut him off with a kiss to his lips, deep and rough and full of promise. “Later,” she murmured. “Zygons first.” 

The Master couldn’t argue with that. 

-

As it turned out, the Zygon in question was just very lost, and very grateful (if a little confused) to be taken home by two odd strangers in full period clothing. The Doctor got to make a cheery speech about not _all_ alien invaders being all that bad, and the Master got to continue what he’d started before their little adventure. The corset, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, for the sake of the Doctor’s ribcage), did not survive the night. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to the thoschei discord gang for enabling this, y’all are amazing


End file.
